On Election Day, The Boston Globe reported, Logan International Airport
in Boston was running short of parking spaces. Not for cars — for
private jets. Big donors were flooding into the city to attend Mitt
Romney’s victory party.

They were, it turned out, misinformed about political reality. But the
disappointed plutocrats weren’t wrong about who was on their side. This
was very much an election pitting the interests of the very rich against
those of the middle class and the poor.

And the Obama campaign won largely by disregarding the warnings of
squeamish “centrists” and embracing that reality, stressing the
class-war aspect of the confrontation. This ensured not only that
President Obama won by huge margins among lower-income voters, but that
those voters turned out in large numbers, sealing his victory.

The important thing to understand now is that while the election is
over, the class war isn’t. The same people who bet big on Mr. Romney,
and lost, are now trying to win by stealth — in the name of fiscal
responsibility — the ground they failed to gain in an open election.

Before I get there, a word about the actual vote. Obviously, narrow
economic self-interest doesn’t explain everything about how individuals,
or even broad demographic groups, cast their ballots. Asian-Americans
are a relatively affluent group, yet they went for President Obama by 3
to 1. Whites in Mississippi, on the other hand, aren’t especially well
off, yet Mr. Obama received only 10 percent of their votes.

These anomalies, however, weren’t enough to change the overall pattern.
Meanwhile, Democrats seem to have neutralized the traditional G.O.P.
advantage on social issues, so that the election really was a referendum
on economic policy. And what voters said, clearly, was no to tax cuts
for the rich, no to benefit cuts for the middle class and the poor. So
what’s a top-down class warrior to do?

The answer, as I have already suggested, is to rely on stealth — to
smuggle in plutocrat-friendly policies under the pretense that they’re
just sensible responses to the budget deficit.

Consider, as a prime example, the push to raise the retirement age, the
age of eligibility for Medicare, or both. This is only reasonable, we’re
told — after all, life expectancy has risen, so shouldn’t we all retire
later? In reality, however, it would be a hugely regressive policy
change, imposing severe burdens on lower- and middle-income Americans
while barely affecting the wealthy. Why? First of all, the increase in
life expectancy is concentrated among the affluent; why should janitors
have to retire later because lawyers are living longer? Second, both
Social Security and Medicare are much more important, relative to
income, to less-affluent Americans, so delaying their availability would
be a far more severe hit to ordinary families than to the top 1
percent.

Or take a subtler example, the insistence that any revenue increases
should come from limiting deductions rather than from higher tax rates.
The key thing to realize here is that the math just doesn’t work; there
is, in fact, no way limits on deductions can raise as much revenue from
the wealthy as you can get simply by letting the relevant parts of the
Bush-era tax cuts expire. So any proposal to avoid a rate increase is,
whatever its proponents may say, a proposal that we let the 1 percent
off the hook and shift the burden, one way or another, to the middle
class or the poor.

The point is that the class war is still on, this time with an added
dose of deception. And this, in turn, means that you need to look very
closely at any proposals coming from the usual suspects, even — or
rather especially — if the proposal is being represented as a
bipartisan, common-sense solution. In particular, whenever some
deficit-scold group talks about “shared sacrifice,” you need to ask,
sacrifice relative to what?

As regular readers may know, I’m not a fan of the Bowles-Simpson report
on deficit reduction that laid out a poorly designed plan that for some
reason has achieved near-sacred status among the Beltway elite. Still,
at least you can say this for Bowles-Simpson: When it talked about
shared sacrifice, it started from a “baseline” that already assumed the
end of the high-end Bush tax cuts. At this point, however, just about
all the deficit scolds seem to want us to count the expiration of those
cuts — which were sold on false pretenses, and were never affordable —
as some kind of big giveback by the rich. It isn’t.

So keep your eyes open as the fiscal game of chicken continues. It’s an
uncomfortable but real truth that we are not all in this together;
America’s top-down class warriors lost big in the election, but now
they’re trying to use the pretense of concern about the deficit to
snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Let’s not let them pull it off.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

"Murder ballads" -- a big thing in American Folk Music. So, all you folks who look back to a "simpler time", a "better time", listen a bit to lyrics. Think a bit of what they say. Killing, drug use, all sorts of nasty stuff. By the way, most done by good old "god-fearing" WHITE folks.

"Ellington At Newport 1956 Often regarded as the best performance of his
career, in 1956, Duke Ellington and his band recorded their historic
concert at the Newport Jazz Festival, revitalizing Ellington's waning
career. Jazz promoter George Wein describes the 1956 concert as "the
greatest performance of Ellington's career... It stood for everything
that jazz had been and could be." Ellington had lately been connecting
the songs "Diminuendo in Blue" and "Crescendo in Blue" in a medley via a
tenor solo from saxophonist Paul Gonsalves. At Newport, Gonsalves
summoned a 27-chorus workout so inspired and transcendent that the
audience was practically rioting by the time he had finished. Orchestra
and audience both remained at a fever pitch for the rest of the show
(vividly captured on the live album Ellington at Newport)."

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

In the wake of the insane attack on a lesbian lover of a family member -- an INVITED GUEST -- at Thanksgiving dinner, Dan Savage said, "The Second Amendment applies to Queers too."

I've been saying that for years, as have many other folks. No matter what the penalties are for a "hate crime", they only apply AFTER the crime is committed. Even if the police were to respond in 3-4 minutes, the victim (let's say YOU) might still be DEAD.

We have to learn how to really defend ourselves -- no matter how proficient you are at martial arts, a strong big man still might kick the crap out of you. We all need something to make it fair -- like a nice handgun that you know how to use.

In
the wake of a vicious attack on a lesbian woman in Alabama, writer and
activist Dan Savage reminded LGBT people, “The Second Amendment applies
to queers, too.”
Savage spoke to Raw Story about a Thanksgiving Day assault
on 23-year-old Mallory Owens, who was severely beaten by her partner’s
brother, 18-year-old Travis Hawkins, Jr., in Mobile, Alabama. According to WKRG, Hawkins was upset that Owens was involved with his sister.
“With homophobia, you often see people exonerate their brother or
sister and blame their same sex partner for the homosexuality,” he said.
“When you see homosexuality as a sickness or an illness or a disease
or a sin, you blame the person that’s ‘doing this’ to your relative.
Unfortunately there isn’t a Gay Avengers organization that’s going to
sweep in and kick their brother’s ass if he loses his mind.”
He
continued, “The question to the family should be, ‘Why was he
invited?’” Hawkins, Jr. had attacked Owens once before, striking her in
the head with a wrench.
“If someone has a history of hitting people in the head with a pipe
wrench, they shouldn’t get an invitation to Thanksgiving, or any family
event, especially one where alcohol is being served. The question
really shouldn’t be directed at the victim. The question should be
directed at the violent brother and the family that’s apparently
supporting him.”
Finally, Savage offered one piece of holiday advice to LGBT people
who might he headed into iffy situations, reminding them that they have a
right to protect themselves.
“Hey, if you’re going home and your family is violent and hateful,”
he said, “Remember, the Second Amendment applies to queers, too.”
In Mobile, Owens’ mother told WKRG that her daughter’s injuries were so severe as to render her unrecognizable.
“He tried to kill her. He’s lucky he didn’t kill her. She’s lucky to
be alive,” said Kristi Taylor of her daughter and Hawkins, Jr. “I
didn’t recognize her when I got here. It’s hard to look at her like
that.”
Owens
was hospitalized with broken ribs and shattered bones in her cheeks and
face. Surgeons have implanted multiple metal plates to stabilize the
front half of her skull and enable healing.
Hawkins, Jr. was arrested on Sunday on charges of second-degree assault and bonded out that afternoon.
Owens’ sister, Avery Godwin, said, “I want him behind bars for life.
He doesn’t need to be out, because if he does he could do this to
someone else or he’ll finish it off with my sister.”
Owens, according to WKRG, has no health insurance. Supporters can donate to a fund in her name at any branch of Regions Bank.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Donate !! Help out any way you can. This woman's LIFE may well depend on it.

It behooves all to look more closely at the criminal suppression of Irish rights and independence by the British Empire. Few talk about the hundreds of thousands of the Irish people sent to the West Indies, and the American Colonies as SLAVES (not "indentured servants") during the 17th and even the early 18th centuries. Perhaps a greater knowledge of this history would help explain the resistance, and the American support of same.

Check out the history of the Irish sent to Barbados, among other places. Look at the systematic suppression of the Irish by the British over MANY CENTURIES and you will no longer be surprised by the anger.

1. Only THREE PERCENT of the very rich are entrepreneurs.
According
to both Marketwatch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the
assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk
investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock
market, and real estate. Only 3.6 percent of taxpayers in the top .1%
were classified as entrepreneurs based on 2004 tax returns. A 2009
Kauffman Foundation study found that the great majority of entrepreneurs
come from middle-class backgrounds, with less than 1 percent of all
entrepreneurs coming from very rich or very poor backgrounds.2. Only FOUR OUT OF 150 countries have more wealth inequality than us.
In
a world listing compiled by a reputable research team (which
nevertheless prompted double-checking), the U.S. has greater wealth
inequality than every measured country in the world except for Namibia,
Zimbabwe, Denmark, and Switzerland.3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.
The
Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is
hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world's
Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that's $8 to $12 trillion in U.S.
money stashed in far-off hiding places.
Based on a historical
stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the
U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion.4. Corporations stopped paying HALF OF THEIR TAXES after the recession.
After
paying an average of 22.5% from 1987 to 2008, corporations have paid an
annual rate of 10% since. This represents a sudden $250 billion annual
loss in taxes.
U.S. corporations have shown a pattern of tax
reluctance for more than 50 years, despite building their businesses
with American research and infrastructure. They've passed the
responsibility on to their workers. For every dollar of workers' payroll
tax paid in the 1950s, corporations paid three dollars. Now it's 22
cents.5. Just TEN Americans made a total of FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS in one year.
That's enough to pay the salaries of over a million nurses or teachers or emergency responders.
That's
enough, according to 2008 estimates by the Food and Agriculture
Organization and the UN's World Food Program, to feed the 870 million
people in the world who are lacking sufficient food.
For the free-market advocates who say "they've earned it": Point #1 above makes it clear how the wealthy make their money.6. Tax deductions for the rich could pay off 100 PERCENT of the deficit.
Another
stat that required a double-check. Based on research by the Tax Policy
Center, tax deferrals and deductions and other forms of tax expenditures
(tax subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions,
credits, capital gains, and loopholes), which largely benefit the rich,
are worth about 7.4% of the GDP, or about $1.1 trillion.
Other
sources have estimated that about two-thirds of the annual $850 billion
in tax expenditures goes to the top quintile of taxpayers.7. The average single black or Hispanic woman has about $100 IN NET WORTH.
The
Insight Center for Community Economic Development reported that median
wealth for black and Hispanic women is a little over $100. That's much
less than one percent of the median wealth for single white women
($41,500).
Other studies confirm the racially-charged economic
inequality in our country. For every dollar of NON-HOME wealth owned by
white families, people of color have only one cent.8. Elderly and disabled food stamp recipients get $4.30 A DAY FOR FOOD.
Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) has dropped significantly over the
past 15 years, serving only about a quarter of the families in poverty,
and paying less than $400 per month for a family of three for housing
and other necessities. Ninety percent of the available benefits go to
the elderly, the disabled, or working households.
Food stamp recipients get $4.30 a day.9. Young adults have lost TWO-THIRDS OF THEIR NET WORTH since 1984.
21- to 35-year-olds: Your median net worth has dropped 68% since 1984. It's now less than $4,000.
That $4,000 has to pay for student loans that average $27,200. Or, if you're still in school, for $12,700 in credit card debt.
With
an unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds of almost 50%, two out of
every five recent college graduates are living with their parents. But
your favorite company may be hiring. Apple, which makes a profit of
$420,000 per employee, can pay you about $12 per hour.10. The American public paid about FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS to bail out the banks.
That's
about the same amount of money made by America's richest 10% in one
year. But we all paid for the bailout. And because of it, we lost the
opportunity for jobs, mortgage relief, and educational funding.
Bonus for the super-rich: A QUADRILLION DOLLARS in securities trading nets ZERO sales tax revenue for the U.S.
The
world derivatives market is estimated to be worth over a quadrillion
dollars (a thousand trillion). At least $200 trillion of that is in the
United States. In 2011 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange reported a
trading volume of over $1 quadrillion on 3.4 billion annual contracts.
A
quadrillion dollars. A sales tax of ONE-TENTH OF A PENNY on a
quadrillion dollars could pay off the deficit. But the total sales tax
was ZERO.
It's not surprising that the very rich would like to fudge the numbers, as they have the nation.

Earlier this week, GQ magazine published an interview with Senator Marco Rubio,
whom many consider a contender for the 2016 Republican presidential
nomination, in which Mr. Rubio was asked how old the earth is. After
declaring “I’m not a scientist, man,” the senator went into desperate
evasive action, ending with the declaration that “it’s one of the great
mysteries.”

It’s funny stuff, and conservatives would like us to forget about it as
soon as possible. Hey, they say, he was just pandering to likely voters
in the 2016 Republican primaries — a claim that for some reason is
supposed to comfort us.

But we shouldn’t let go that easily. Reading Mr. Rubio’s interview is
like driving through a deeply eroded canyon; all at once, you can
clearly see what lies below the superficial landscape. Like striated
rock beds that speak of deep time, his inability to acknowledge
scientific evidence speaks of the anti-rational mind-set that has taken
over his political party.

By the way, that question didn’t come out of the blue. As speaker of the
Florida House of Representatives, Mr. Rubio provided powerful aid to
creationists trying to water down science education. In one interview, he compared the teaching of evolution to Communist indoctrination tactics — although he graciously added that “I’m not equating the evolution people with Fidel Castro.” Gee, thanks.

What was Mr. Rubio’s complaint about science teaching? That it might
undermine children’s faith in what their parents told them to believe.
And right there you have the modern G.O.P.’s attitude, not just toward
biology, but toward everything: If evidence seems to contradict faith,
suppress the evidence.

The most obvious example other than evolution is man-made climate
change. As the evidence for a warming planet becomes ever stronger — and
ever scarier — the G.O.P. has buried deeper into denial, into
assertions that the whole thing is a hoax concocted by a vast conspiracy
of scientists. And this denial has been accompanied by frantic efforts
to silence and punish anyone reporting the inconvenient facts.

But the same phenomenon is visible in many other fields. The most recent
demonstration came in the matter of election polls. Coming into the
recent election, state-level polling clearly pointed to an Obama victory
— yet more or less the whole Republican Party refused to acknowledge
this reality. Instead, pundits and politicians alike fiercely denied the
numbers and personally attacked anyone pointing out the obvious; the
demonizing of The Times’s Nate Silver, in particular, was remarkable to
behold.

What accounts for this pattern of denial? Earlier this year, the science
writer Chris Mooney published “The Republican Brain,” which was not, as
you might think, a partisan screed. It was, instead, a survey of the now-extensive research
linking political views to personality types. As Mr. Mooney showed,
modern American conservatism is highly correlated with authoritarian
inclinations — and authoritarians are strongly inclined to reject any
evidence contradicting their prior beliefs. Today’s Republicans cocoon
themselves in an alternate reality defined by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh
and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, and only on rare occasions
— like on election night — encounter any hint that what they believe
might not be true.

And, no, it’s not symmetric. Liberals, being human, often give in to
wishful thinking — but not in the same systematic, all-encompassing way.

Coming back to the age of the earth: Does it matter? No, says Mr. Rubio,
pronouncing it “a dispute amongst theologians” — what about the
geologists? — that has “has nothing to do with the gross domestic
product or economic growth of the United States.” But he couldn’t be
more wrong.

We are, after all, living in an era when science plays a crucial
economic role. How are we going to search effectively for natural
resources if schools trying to teach modern geology must give equal time
to claims that the world is only 6.000 years old? How are we going to
stay competitive in biotechnology if biology classes avoid any material
that might offend creationists?

And then there’s the matter of using evidence to shape economic policy. You may have read about the recent study from the Congressional Research Service
finding no empirical support for the dogma that cutting taxes on the
wealthy leads to higher economic growth. How did Republicans respond? By suppressing the report.
On economics, as in hard science, modern conservatives don’t want to
hear anything challenging their preconceptions — and they don’t want
anyone else to hear about it, either.

So don’t shrug off Mr. Rubio’s awkward moment. His inability to deal
with geological evidence was symptomatic of a much broader problem — one
that may, in the end, set America on a path of inexorable decline.

There were just the two of us for Thanksgiving. We expected more, but circumstances changed in midstream - so, we were two.

Everything was very good. Instead of cooking, we assembled. All the usual sides (in truth, mine are better). They were at least acceptable. We bought a smoked turkey -- a "Greenberg Family Smoked Turkey" -- we were told it is delicious --- it really is. Moist, smokey, tender, flavorful. Whatever they injected it with, it enhanced the flavor.

Lots of good sandwiches coming.

The carcass and some of the skin will be used for soup - along with some of the meat. First a nice (I hope) pasta e fagoli. Then, whatever we think will work.

We also picked up some good cold cuts and cheeses -- no going out for quite a while.

I was originally upset that we would be only two - but now, I think it was for the best.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

It's time, once again, for that TRADITIONAL AMERICAN Holiday we call THANKSGIVING!

Its Protestant, vaguely anti-Catholic origins, along with its thinly veiled racism make it the MOST American of AMERICAN Holidays.

So, here's a little Thanksgiving treat.

----------------------------------------------------

don't forget, have a Happy Thanksgiving -- don't let either Uncle Charlie or Grandpa Horace drown in the soup when they pass out. Do not allow any of the political arguments come to physical manifestations -- pushing, shoving, drink throwing, punches or slaps. Yelling and screaming are just fine -- even expected (in some families). If folks storm out in a rage/huff/fit of pique - or, all of the above - it just means there is MORE FOR YOU!!

If visiting other folks, please do not allow your envy to overwhelm you - a good front really means little. Perhaps those folks were just trying to make your stay more comfortable. If you can't accept that -- "go in peace" (but go).

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

This from Dr. Krugman's blog. Please follow link to original -- there's a lot of good stuff there. Go read it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

There has been a lot of talk since the
election about the possible emergence of a new faction within the
Republican party, or at least among the conservative intelligentsia.
These new Republicans, we’re told, are willing to be more open-minded on
cultural issues, more understanding of immigrants, and more skeptical
that trickle-down economics is enough; they’ll favor direct measures to
help working families.
So what should we call these new Republicans? I have a suggestion: why not call them “Democrats”?
There are three things you need to understand here.
First,
on economic issues the modern Democratic party is what we would once
have considered “centrist”, or even center-right. Obama’s
Heritage-Foundation-inspired health care plan is to the right of Richard Nixon’s.
Nobody with political influence is suggesting a return to pre-Reagan
tax rates on the wealthy. Fantasies about Obama as a socialist,
redistributionist hater of capitalism bear no more resemblance to
reality than fantasies about his birthplace or religion.
Second,
today’s Republican party is an alliance between the plutocrats and the
preachers, plus some opportunists along for the ride — full stop. The
whole party is about low taxes at the top (and low benefits for
the rest), plus conservative social values and putting religion in the
schools; it has no other reason for being. Someday there may emerge
another party with the same name standing for a quite different agenda;
after all, the Republicans were once defined by opposition to slavery,
and the Democrats by rural voters (hence the donkey) and Tammany Hall.
But that will take a long time, and it won’t really be the same party.
Finally,
it’s true that there are some Republican intellectuals and pundits who
seem to be truly open-minded about both economic and social issues. But I
worded that carefully: they “seem to be” open-minded; indeed, they’re
professional seemers. When it matters, they can always be counted on —
after making a big show of stroking their chins and agonizing — to
follow the party line, and reject anything that doesn’t go along with
the preacher-plutocrat agenda. If they don’t deliver when it counts,
they are excommunicated; see Frum, David.
Anyone who imagines that there is any real soul-searching going on is deluding himself or herself.

Hometown Community Bank, Braselton, Georgia, was closed today by the
Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the
depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement
with CertusBank, National Association, Easley, South Carolina, to assume
all of the deposits of Hometown Community Bank.
The two branches of Hometown Community Bank will reopen on Saturday
as branches of CertusBank, N.A. Depositors of Hometown Community Bank
will automatically become depositors of CertusBank, N.A. Deposits will
continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to
change their banking relationship in order to retain their deposit
insurance coverage up to applicable limits. Customers of Hometown
Community Bank should continue to use their existing branch until they
receive notice from CertusBank, N.A. that it has completed systems
changes to allow other CertusBank, N.A. branches to process their
accounts as well.
This evening and over the weekend, depositors of Hometown Community
Bank can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit
cards. Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed. Loan
customers should continue to make their payments as usual.
As of September 30, 2012, Hometown Community Bank had approximately
$124.6 million in total assets and $108.9 million in total deposits. In
addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank,
CertusBank, N.A. agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.
Customers with questions about today's transaction should call the
FDIC toll-free at 1-800-830-4725. The phone number will be operational
this evening until 9:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time (EST); on Saturday
from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., EST; on Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m., EST;
on Monday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., EST; and thereafter from 9:00 a.m. to
5:00 p.m., EST.
Interested parties also can visit the FDIC's Web site at http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/hometown.html.
The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF)
will be $36.7 million. Compared to other alternatives, CertusBank,
N.A.'s acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF.
Hometown Community Bank is the 50th FDIC-insured institution to fail in
the nation this year, and the tenth in Georgia. The last FDIC-insured
institution closed in the state was Jasper Banking Company, Jasper, on
July 27, 2012.

Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), who swept into Congress in the 2010 Tea Party wave, has been exposed as an adulterer
many, many times over. DesJarlais is an ardent supporter of "God-given
traditional marriage." His campaign website adds "AND PROUD OF IT!"
Today's news comes via his just-released divorce files.

Obtained by the Chattanooga Times Free
Press, the couple’s 2001 trial transcript also confirms DesJarlais had
sexual relationships with at least two patients, three coworkers and a
drug representative while he was chief of staff at Grandview Medical
Center in Jasper, Tenn. During one affair with a female patient,
DesJarlais prescribed her drugs, gave her an $875 watch and bought her a
plane ticket to Las Vegas, records show.DesJarlais
spokesman Robert Jameson did not respond to requests for comment. The
attorney for the congressman's ex-wife said that at this point she does
not have any comments to issue on her ex-husband's testimony.The
transcript corroborates accounts given to the Times Free Press in
October by one of the patients who had a sexual relationship with
DesJarlais. The newspaper continues to grant her anonymity, along with
all the women due to the nature of the testimony.

The bigger news, for most people following this story, is that the
publicly strongly anti-choice DesJarlais supported his ex-wife's
decision to get two abortions before they married. He also, allegedly,
pressured one of his mistresses to do the same. Some are speculating
that he may resign.
---------------------------------------------------
NOW, I'm done for the day.

There's nothing that's really new today -- The Republicans are still blaming their loss on "urban voters", "the blahs", "gifts from Obama", and, of course, the fact they could not steal the election, and their voter suppression tactics did not work.

"Benghazi" is still a buzz word, joined by "Susan Rice". Senator John McCain once again shows why we were really smart in not electing him. Sen. Lindsey Graham make us happy, every single day, that he is not our Senator, and has not (yet) come out.

Republicans are still, as usual, DICKS!! Democrats are trying to move right, or to something D.C. "pundits" (those rich a$$h*les) call "the center" (well to the right of Barry Goldwater AND Richard Nixon - though I'm not quite sure of Goldwater).

We have guests arriving tomorrow for The Holidays -- so, we've been trying to clean up our mess before they arrive ---- WHAT, you think I have time to both CLEAN and do this blog? You know nothing about old age and the need to scan every damn news source and blog just to get an occasional "nugget" (even though everyone else eventually gets the very same "nuggets".

There’s a strand of thought — I identify it especially with Corey Robin,
although he’s not alone — that says that conservatism isn’t really
about the things it claims to be about. It isn’t really about free
markets and moral values; it’s about authority — the authority of bosses
over workers, of men over women, of whites over Those People.
Score one on the morality front: Pat Robertson, stern moral lecturer, says that it wasn’t Petraeus’s fault because “he’s a man”.

This from "Echidne Of The Snakes". The title above is mine, the excerpt below is hers. If our "rabid-right-wing-religious-anti-woman-Republican-zealots" have their way --- this might well be our future. After all, what does the loss of a few women mean when measured against the ALL HOLY FETUS? Don't forget, one insane, anti-woman, Republican Political Genius said that the days of a mothers life being in danger are OVER. Said modern medical science has put to an end the possibility of death from childbirth. Since when did HE become any sort of expert?

Two investigations are under way into the death of a woman who was 17 weeks pregnant, at University Hospital Galway last month.Savita
Halappanavar (31), a dentist, presented with back pain at the hospital
on October 21st, was found to be miscarrying, and died of septicaemia a
week later.Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar (34), an engineer at
Boston Scientific in Galway, says she asked several times over a
three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated. He says that, having
been told she was miscarrying, and after one day in severe pain, Ms
Halappanavar asked for a medical termination.This was refused, he says, because the foetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, “this is a Catholic country”.She spent a further 2½ days “in agony” until the foetal heartbeat stopped.Intensive care The
dead foetus was removed and Savita was taken to the high dependency
unit and then the intensive care unit, where she died of septicaemia on
the 28th.An autopsy carried out by Dr Grace Callagy two days later
found she died of septicaemia “documented ante-mortem” and E.coli ESBL.

Let's make this clear. She was miscarrying. The fetus could not be
saved. According to the Irish law abortion is legal to save the life of
the pregnant woman. She was in agony. But she had to wait until the
fetal heartbeat stopped.

Then her own heartbeat stopped. ..................................................
-------------------------------------

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is
to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted with New Economic Perspectives

Third Way, lobbyists for and from Wall Street who are leading the
effort to enrich Wall Street by privatizing Social Security, was created
by Wall Street to fool some of the people all of the time. I have
written previously here and here to expose their fictional claims to be a moderate or liberal Democratic group.
Eric Lautner documented Wall Street’s effort to become even wealthier by privatizing Social Security in articles and his recent book (“The People’s Pension: The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan (AK Press)).
I showed that Third Way makes itself useful by providing a faux
“liberal” or “moderate” “Democratic” quote machine that can be used to
discredit Democrats and Democratic policies such as the safety net. I
gave examples of how Third Way gave aid and comfort to the effort to
defeat Elizabeth Warren and the effort to unravel the safety net. Third
Way continues to prove that you can fool some of the people all of the
time.
The National Journal ran an article on November 8, 2012 entitled “Left Divided over ‘Grand Bargain.’”

Groups concerned with protecting entitlements such as
Social Security and Medicare are finding themselves at odds over whether
an overarching fiscal deal during Congress’s end-of-year session would
help or hurt their cause.
The AFL-CIO organized a day of action on Thursday–part of a broader
post-election campaign to protect entitlements–with dozens of events
scheduled nationwide to urge lawmakers to avoid such a deal.
A “grand bargain” to prevent the year-end onset of tax hikes and
spending cuts “could cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
benefits, all to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans,” the labor
group argued on its organizing site. But the union campaign is being met
with resistance from others on the left.
“We, like you, are ecstatic about the reelection of President Barack
Obama and what it means or American growth and prosperity,” wrote Jim
Kessler, senior vice president for policy for Third Way, a liberal think
tank with a centrist approach, in an open letter to the groups involved
with the day of action. “However, as fellow progressives, we were
disappointed to learn that you will be leading an effort against the
President to impede a balanced grand bargain.”
In order to protect safety-net programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, the left must embrace reform, Kessler writes.

Let me attempt again to make the basic facts clear. Third Way is not
a “liberal think tank.” It does not take “a centrist approach.” It is
not run by “fellow progressives.” It is not concerned with “protecting
entitlements.” It is not even a “think tank.” Third Way is a creature
of Wall Street. It’s version of “protecting” the safety net was made
infamous during the Tet offensive in Viet Nam when the American officer
explained that “it became necessary to destroy the village in order to
save it.” Third Way is the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party,
which seeks to defeat Democratic candidates like Elizabeth Warren
running against Wall Street sycophants like Senator Scott Brown and
seeks to unravel the safety net programs that are the crown jewels of
the Democratic Party. Wall Street’s “natural” party is certainly the
Republican Party, but Wall Street has no permanent party or ideology,
only permanent interests. Third Way serves its financial interests and
the personal interests of its senior executives. Wall Street has always
been the enemy of Social Security and its greatest dream is to
privatize Social Security. Wall Street’s senior executives live in
terror of being held accountable under the criminal laws for their
crimes. They became wealthy by leading the “control frauds” that drove
the financial crisis and the Great Recession. This is why Wall Street
made defeating Warren a top priority.
Third Way is run by a man who Lautner terms an “acolyte” of Pete
Peterson. Peterson is a Republican, Wall Street billionaire who has two
priorities – imposing austerity on America and privatizing Social
Security. Privatizing Social Security is Wall Street’s unholy grail.
They would receive hundreds of billions of dollars in fees and ensure
that their firms were not only “too big to fail,” but “too big to
criticize” if they could profit from a privatized retirement system.
(We do not know who funds Third Way because it refuses to make its
donors public. Given who dominates its Board of Trustees, however, the
donors must be overwhelmingly from Wall Street.)
Third Way’s self-description has some elements of honesty, admitting that it is “led by a prominent private sector Board of Trustees,
drawn from finance, industry, academia, the non-profit sector and
government.” The order is revealing – the board is dominated by
finance, with a thin veneer provided by industry, and with the barest
patina of “academics” and “government.”

Here are key excerpts from their web site identifying their board.
• John L. Vogelstein

William D. “Bill” Budinger is the founder of Rodel, Inc.,
where he served for 33 years as its chairman and CEO. [Rodel
manufactured semi-conductors.]

• David A. Coulter

Mr. Coulter serves as Managing Director and Senior
Advisor at Warburg Pincus, focusing on the firm’s financial services
practice.
Mr. Coulter retired in September 2005 as vice chairman of J.P. Morgan
& Chase Co. He previously served as Executive Chairman of its
investment bank, asset and wealth management, and private equity
business.

• Jonathan Cowan

Prior to co-founding Third Way, Mr. Cowan founded and ran
Americans for Gun Safety…. In 1992, he co-founded Lead…or Leave, which
became the nation’s leading Generation X advocacy group. [He lobbied
to protect “second amendment rights” to bear arms and led a Pete
Peterson inspired group urging “Gen X” members to unravel the safety
net.]

• Lewis Cullman

Mr. Cullman was the Founder and President of Cullman
Ventures, Inc., a diversified corporation that included the At-A-Glance
group, which manufactures and markets diaries….

• William M. Daley

William Daley served as President Obama’s Chief of Staff from January 2011 until January 2012.
Prior to his Chief of Staff role, he was Vice Chairman … of … JPMorgan Chase, from 2004 until 2011.
As Special Counsel to President Clinton in 1993, Daley coordinated the
successful campaign to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA).
He was co-chair of the US Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital
Markets Competitiveness. [This is code for deregulation of finance.]

Andrew Feldstein is the CEO and Chief Investment Officer of BlueMountain Capital Management….
Prior to co-founding BlueMountain in 2003, Mr. Feldstein spent over a
decade at JPMorgan where he was a Managing Director and served as Head
of Structured Credit; Head of High Yield Sales, Trading and Research;
and Head of Global Credit Portfolio. [“High yield” is a euphemism for
junk bonds.]

• Brian Frank

Mr. Frank is a Director and Portfolio Manager at MSD Capital, L.P., the private investment firm founded by Michael Dell.

• Michael B. Goldberg

Mr. Goldberg joined Kelso & Company in 1991 as a Partner and Managing Director. [Private equity.]

• Peter A. Joseph

Mr. Joseph has been in the private equity investment business for over twenty years….

• Derek Kaufman

Derek Kaufman is Head of Global Fixed Income at Citadel LLC. He is a member of Citadel’s Portfolio Committee.
Prior to joining Citadel in 2008, Mr. Kaufman was a Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase….

• Derek Kirkland

Mr. Kirkland is a Managing Director and Co-Head of the
Global Financial Institutions Group at Morgan Stanley’s Financial
Institutions Group in Investment Banking.

• Ronald A. Klain

Ronald A. “Ron” Klain is President of Case Holdings, and
General Counsel of Revolution LLC. [Case is an investment fund for the
holdings of AOL’s founder.]

• Thurgood Marshall, Jr.

Mr. Marshall is a partner at Bingham McCutchen LLP, and a
Principal of Bingham Consulting Group. Mr. Marshall counsels and
devises strategies for advancing clients’ interests before Congress, the
executive branch and independent regulatory agencies. [He is a lobbyist
for a firm best known for representing financial firms.]

• Susan McCue

Ms. McCue is President of Message-Global, LLC, a
strategic communications and public affairs firm she founded in January
2008 to advance progressive campaigns, activism and issue advocacy in
the U.S. and globally.

• Herbert Miller

Mr. Miller, former CEO and Chairman of The Mills
Corporation, one of America’s most innovative and successful mall
developers and managers, founded Western Development Corporation (WDC)
in 1967 and serves as its Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and
Principal Stockholder.

• Michael Novogratz

Mr. Novogratz has been President and Director of Fortress
Investment Group LLC….. Prior to joining Fortress, Mr. Novogratz spent
11 years at Goldman Sachs….

• Andrew Parmentier

Mr. Parmentier is a Founding and Managing Partner of
Height Analytics. He and fellow Managing Partner John Akridge formed the
company in January 2009. He has worked in the financial services
industry since 1997….

• Kirk Radke

Recognized internationally as one of the top private equity attorneys during his 28 year career at Kirkland & Ellis….
Among professional activities, Mr. Radke is Co-Chair & Organizer of
the International Bar Association Private Equity Symposium, Founder of
the Private Equity General Counsel Network, Founder of Legal Series and
Co-Founder of the Private Equity Law Firm Roundtable.

• Howard Rossman

Dr. Rossman is a President and Founder of Mesirow
Advanced Strategies, Inc. and a Vice Chairman of its parent, Mesirow
Financial Holdings Inc. He is responsible for all aspects of fund
management, including manager due diligence, strategy analysis and asset
allocation.

• Tim Sweeney

Mr. Sweeney has been President and CEO of the
Denver-based Gill Foundation since October 2007. For more than 30 years,
he has worked to advance equality for all people regardless of sexual
orientation or gender expression.

• Ted Trimpa

Mr. Trimpa is a partner with the international law firm, Hogan Lovells LLP.

• Barbara Manfrey Vogelstein

She has over 24 years of experience in venture capital
and specialized equity investing. [S]he was a Partner of Warburg Pincus,
one of the world’s largest private equity firms.

• Joseph Zimlich

Mr. Zimlich is the Chief Executive Officer of Bohemian
Companies, a group of family-owned real estate and private equity
holdings.

Twenty of the twenty-nine trustees come from finance (counting the
lawyer whose specialty is representing private equity firms). Their
most common background is Mitt Romney’s – private equity – and hedge
funds. The nine non-finance members include:

• A Pete Peterson acolyte who previously created
supposedly centrist front groups for gun rights and an effort to enlist
“Gen X” in Wall Street’s assault on the safety net
• A developer of giant malls
• A semi-conductor manufacturer
• A manufacturer of diaries
• A criminologist/journalist
• A PR specialist
• A gay rights activist
• A lobbyist at a firm best known for representing finance
• A lawyer

The board includes three representatives of “main street” (malls,
semi-conductors, and diaries). They are not heavy hitters compared to
the finance representatives. On finance issues, Third Way is Wall
Street. It is run by Wall Street for Wall Street. It is liberal only
on social issues such as gay rights – and Wall Street created Third Way
to focus on finance.
I have explained in other articles the incoherence and ineptitude of
the financial policies that Third Way (including Casey, who temporarily
left Third Way’s board to serve as President Obama’s chief of staff,
where he urged Obama to adopt austerity and the Great Betrayal. I have
explained how those policies would have thrown the nation back into
recession and doomed Obama’s chance for re-election. Third Way has
learned nothing from their errors – they continue to push the Great
Betrayal and austerity. Their overriding goal is to begin the process
of privatizing Social Security. The fact that their policies would
cause a gratuitous recession, immense misery, and terrible electoral
losses to Democrats does not represent a policy failure to Wall Street.
Wall Street would be the grand winner if we began to privatize Social
Security as Third Way proposes.
The “left” is not divided on the need to oppose austerity and the
Great Betrayal. Third Way is not left or center or even right. It is
Wall Street on the Potomac. Opposition to austerity and the Great
Betrayal is not a left v. center issue. Wall Street’s proposed
financial policies are terrible for virtually all Americans.

Let's be clear -- Obama is NOT a "progressive". He is who he has said over and over again he is - a "Clintonian sorta-lib". You want something progressive out of him -- fight for it, work him, yell and scream -- MAYBE then.............................. .

No one really gives a flying fuck about "Benghazi". The fact we lost folks is a bad thing. It's a horrible thing. It was NOT a "plot" by our "terrorist-sympathizer-Muslim-madrasa-trained-Nazi-Communist-I hate-white-people-foreign-not-really-American" President. AND, no one but some wing-nut-rabid-right-wing-republicans care.

General David Petraeus is a product of the Media, a typical Washington bull-shit-artist, and was most likely dumped for other, more serious reasons. In any case, I think it good his coup failed, and that the CIA rose up to get rid of him -- or something like that, or not.

The Republicans STILL DO NOT HAVE A CLUE. If they actually accept reality -- they dissolve the party, come out, embrace their inner Democrat, and work for a more egalitarian society. They admit we all need health care, all require paid vacations, good jobs, good PUBLIC SCHOOLS, need a totally updated infrastructure, and that the Public Works Projects will keep our economy humming for years. They will also reign in Wall Street, the Koch brothers and their ilk, and tell their rabid supporters the truth -- they were just kidding all these years.

Instead of slinking away, these cowards will stand up and apologize to Nate Silver -- after that, these same Republican operatives will admit they know nothing about math, polling, statistics, and last, but not least WOMEN. They are the REAL "girly-men".

Paul Ryan will finally embrace his "inner clown" and stop pretending to be a "policy wonk". People will also realize it is not WONK but WANKER -- an easy enough mistake.

The "tea-party" folks will STOP complaining about the gubmint from their gubmint "mobility devices", while living of their gubmint Social Security and Medicare. They WILL understand that a stable society just might protect old coots (like me) better than one 1911 and an AK47.

Days before the election Pastor Robert Jeffress of the 10,000-member
First Baptist Church of Dallas compared President Obama to Hitler, telling 600 other pastors
at a luncheon that if they didn't speak out on the election, it could
lead to another Holocaust. On election day Franklin Graham, railing
against the president, said on CNN that "this election could be America's last call before the return of Christ." (After the election Graham said
that the country was now on a "path to destruction.") It shouldn't come
as a shock, then, that Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council
(FRC), reacting to the reelection of the president and victories for
gay marriage in four states, issued a dire warning
of "a revolt, a revolution" if the Supreme Court now rules in favor of
same-sex marriage, with "Americans saying, 'You know what? Enough of
this!'"
The court may do just that on Nov. 20
if it lets stand the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that
California's Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. The court is also likely
to take on the Defense of Marriage Act, which has been ruled
unconstitutional by several federal appeals courts.
It's outrageous that Perkins would even remotely suggest violence ("I
hate to use the words," he said, "but I mean a revolt, a revolution"),
particularly given that FRC was itself targeted by a gunman
and Perkins was the first to claim that rhetoric against his group is
what caused that violence. It betrays the fear and desperation now
gripping the leaders of the decades-old political movement known as the
Christian right, which is faced with some vexing realities:1. There may no longer be enough of them. Contrary
to what some may have predicted, evangelical voters turned out for Mitt
Romney, a Mormon, making up a greater percentage of the electorate than they did in 2004,
when they helped reelect George W. Bush, and giving a larger percentage
of their vote (78 percent) to Romney than they did to John McCain in
2008. It's not about loyalty. What they're facing is something much more
difficult: the rise of the "nones," which I wrote about
a few weeks ago. The fastest-growing religious category comprises those
who have no religious affiliation, now the second largest category
after Catholics, and even larger among younger voters. They
overwhelmingly support same-sex marriage and abortion rights, and they
largely vote Democratic. And polls show that even a majority of younger evangelicals themselves support marriage equality.2. Attempting to fix the "demographic problem" that the media
(and conservative pundits) have been buzzing about in recent days isn't
going to solve anything. GOP strategists, as well as cultural conservatives like Maggie Gallagher,
former president the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), talk
about how they now have to reach out to Latinos solely by changing their
tone on the issue of immigration, claiming that Latinos are with them
on the social issues. But this is wishful thinking at best, and
stereotyping at worst. In fact, Latino voters mirror the rest of the
country on gay marriage or are even more supportive of it. Exit polls and pre-election polls showed that Latinos favor marriage equality even more than the larger population, and that large majorities of Latinos favor
abortion rights. Similarly, targeting the African-American community
has proved futile, as Maryland, with its large African-American voting
population, approved marriage equality.3. Catholics, who make up the largest religious group in the country, can no longer be relied upon in any big way. The Vatican can talk about the sin of homosexuality until St. Peter rolls over in his tomb, but a majority of Catholics in the U.S. helped reelect Barack Obama, and in polls a majority support marriage equality. Prominent conservative Catholic leader Deal Hudson even recently admitted
that gay marriage "doesn't raise the temperature of the bulk of the
Catholic Mass-going voters" any longer, and that "attitudes about
homosexuals have changed so much over the last several years."4. Single women overwhelmingly voted for President Obama and Democrats, and men and women are remaining single much longer than they did even 10 years ago. Barely half of American adults today are married, a record low. Comments by Senate candidates about rape and abortion -- elucidating positions on abortion that are mirrored by that of Paul Ryan
-- served to wake up many people to the reality of what the Christian
right's agenda is all about when it comes to women's bodies and their
relationships to men, and that's particularly salient for single women. 5. Nine states now have marriage equality.According to Freedom to Marry,
nearly 17 percent of the U.S. population lives in states that allow
gays and lesbians to legally marry or that honor out-of-state marriages
of same-sex couples. If the Supreme Court allows the Prop 8 decision to
stand in California, that number will jump to well over 25 percent.
Nearly 39 percent of the U.S. population lives in states with either
full marriage equality or some sort of broad legal recognition of
same-sex relationships, such as civil unions or domestic partnerships.
As Joe Sudbay demonstrated
in a smart post last week, the trend lines are going in the wrong
direction on this issue for the Christian right. The GOP sees this and
will be forced to either cleave off NOM, FRC and others or see public
support for the party continue to erode.
I'm not suggesting that the Christian right is dead or going away
anytime soon. While barely over 50 percent of Americans support marriage
equality in most national polls, there obviously is a large minority
that is opposed to it. And in some states, like North Carolina, which
passed a ban on gay marriage just this past May with 64 percent of the
vote, a large majority of the population is in line with the religious
right's agenda. The hate we've seen spewed into the political discourse
this year was bone-chilling and among the worst we've seen, with
preachers speaking out against gay marriage by calling for gays to be rounded up or killed by the government,
but it's going to get uglier and nastier, and the battles only more
intense. When they start talking about "revolution" and "revolt," we all
had better pay attention. The last thing we should be doing is sitting
around thinking we've won.

No wonder the wealthiest ten percent feel so clever, and even perhaps triumphant.

The collapse caused by the widespread banking fraud has barely affected
them, whereas it wiped out most of the last ten years of growth in the
middle class and the poor.

In my considered opinion this is largely the result of policy and tax
decisions that have been made by the government over the past twenty or
more years, in which they fostered a financially predatory economy.

Financial bubbles are often wealth transfer mechanisms, and in this case it appears that you can also keep what you kill.

SEVILLE, Spain — The first night after Francisco Rodríguez Flores, 71,
and his wife, Ana López Corral, 67, were evicted from their small
apartment here after falling behind on their mortgage, they slept in the
entrance hall of their building. Their daughters, both unemployed and
living with them, slept in a neighbor’s van.

“It was the worst thing ever,” Mrs. López said recently, studying her
hands. “You can’t image what it felt like to be there in that hall. It’s
a story you can’t really tell because it is not the same as living it.”

Things are somewhat better now. The Rodríguezes are among the 36
families who have taken over a luxury apartment block here that had been
vacant for three years. There is no electricity. The water was recently
cut off, and there is the fear that the authorities will evict them
once again. But, Mrs. López says, they are not living on the street — at
least not yet.

The number of Spanish families facing eviction continues to mount at a
dizzying pace — hundreds a day, housing advocates say. The problem has
become so acute that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has promised to
announce emergency measures on Monday, though what they may be remains
unclear.

While some are able to move in with family members, a growing number,
like the Rodríguezes, have no such option. Their relatives are in no
better shape than they are, and Spain has virtually no emergency shelter
system for families.

For some, the pressure has been too much to bear. In recent weeks, a
53-year-old man in Granada hanged himself just hours before he was to be
evicted, and a 53-year-old woman in Bilbao jumped to her death as court
officials arrived at her door.

Yet at the same time, the country is dotted with empty housing of all
kinds, perhaps as many as two million units, by some estimates. Experts
say more and more of the evicted — who face a lifetime of debt and a
system of blacklisting that makes it virtually impossible for them to
rent — are increasingly taking over vacant properties or moving back
into their old homes after they have been seized.

Sometimes neighbors report such activities. But often, experts say, they
do not. It is a temporary and often anxious existence. But many see no
alternative.

The Rodríguezes fell behind in their payments trying to help their
daughters, who both lost their jobs and have three children between
them. Their daughters had come to live with them after being evicted
themselves. “I could not let my children and my grandchildren starve,”
said Mrs. López, who used to work as a cleaner in a home for the
elderly.

No one tracks the number of squatters. But Rafael Martín Sanz, the
president of a real estate management company, says squatting has become
so common that some real estate companies are reluctant to put signs on
the outsides of buildings indicating that an apartment is available.

“The joke is that half the people touring apartments that are on the
market are actually just picking out which apartment they want to squat
in,” he said.

Most of the evictions take place quietly, with embarrassed families
dropping the keys off at the banks. But in some working-class
neighborhoods, there are weekly clashes with the police and bank
officials, as housing advocates and volunteers try to resist the
evictions.

In Madrid’s Carabanchel neighborhood, a crowd protesting outside a
basement apartment recently shouted “shame on you” to a cluster of bank
and court officials who had come to evict Edward Hernández and his
family. But Mr. Hernández’s lawyer, Rafael Mayoral, sized up the picture
and predicted he would be able to negotiate a postponement. The crowd
of supporters, he said, outnumbered the police officers.

Mr. Hernández, 38, who worked in construction, bought the apartment for
$320,000 in 2006, but he lost his job three years later, he said. He
thought he had negotiated with his bank to pay less for a while. But one
day, he said, he got a letter saying that his apartment had been
auctioned.

Mr. Hernández and his wife have their eye on an empty apartment they
intend to occupy. Failing that, the couple will have to split up, he
said. His wife would go back to live with her mother, who is behind in
her own mortgage payments and already housing her other adult children.
Mr. Hernández would live with his brother, who lives with his young
family in a studio apartment

By the end of the morning, bank and court officials had agreed to
postpone Mr. Hernández’s eviction for six weeks. He still faces a debt
of more than $330,000, more than he paid for the apartment. In Spain,
mortgage holders are personally liable for the full amount of their
mortgages. Then penalty interest charges and tens of thousands of
dollars in court fees are added at foreclosure. Bankruptcy is no answer,
either — mortgage debt is excluded.

Trying to stem the flow of homeless, the Spanish government has asked
the banks to adhere to a code of conduct that protects, to some degree,
the very poorest Spaniards, and many of the banks have signed on. But
advocates say that the code offers relief to such a narrow slice of
homeowners — those who have no working adults in their household and who
paid less than $260,000 for their homes — that it is unlikely to have
much effect.

Elena Cortés, the councilor for public works and housing for Andalusia,
the region that includes Seville, said that during the boom years the
government rarely built any low-income housing. On top of that, the
country has never had much rental property. Now, as families are evicted
they have nowhere to turn. In a written statement, Spain’s banking
association, the A.E.B., said banks were looking to avoid evictions
whenever they could through negotiation.

The Rodríguezes began living in the luxury block, Corrala Utopía, in May
with only a few belongings, a move that was organized by members of the
15-M movement, the name given to people who became organized after the
countrywide protests that began on May 15 last year. One member of the
group, Juanjo García Marín, said the property was chosen because it was
mired in legal proceedings that might give the families more time to
stay there.

Neighbors have given them furniture, and donations of food arrive most
days. On a recent evening, Mrs. López was using a generator to keep her
lights on and her refrigerator running. Others in the building also have
generators, but some cannot afford the gasoline to keep them running.

After dinner, Mrs. López’s 13-year-old grandson arrived, announcing that
he needed a place to do his homework. His mother’s apartment upstairs
had no lights.

I am going to take away Medicare from everybody under 55, I'm
going to cut Medicaid for everybody but about a third, and I'm going to
do that to finance a giant tax cut for me and my friends, and the reason
I'm doing that is because half the country contribute nothing to the
national endeavor.

Then about four minutes in, something even more attention-grabbing
after Scarborough bloviated about Thatcher and Reagan appealing to the
common man:

Since the loss of the election, we have heard an enormous amount
of discussion from Republicans on television and newspaper columns about
immigration as an issue... but all of us who are allowed to participate
in this conversation, we all have health insurance. And the fact that
millions of Americans don't have health insurance, they don't get to be
on television. And it is maybe a symptom of a broader problem, not just
the Republican problem, that the economic anxieties of so many Americans
are just not part of the national discussion at all.
I mean, we have not yet emerged from the greatest national
catastrophe, the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great
Depression. And what are we talking about? The deficit and the debt. And
these are important problems, but they're a lot easier to worry about
if you are wealthier than you were in 2008, which most of the people on
television now are again, if you are securely employed, which most of
the people on television now are. But that's not true for 80% of
America. And the Republican Party, the opposition party, needed to find
some way to give voice to real urgent economic concerns held by middle
class Americans. Latinos, yes, but Americans of all ethnicities.

None of the panelists on Scaraborough--not Joe himself, not David
Gregory, not Chuck Todd, none of them--dared to answer Frum's
devastating indictment of them. Not of the Republican Party, but of
them. It was uncomfortable, and then blithely ignored.
Remarkable.
After five full minutes of inside-baseball speculation on
Republican leadership games during which Frum looked like he might pull a
Howard Beale... he finally got a chance to speak again

I believe the Republican Party is a party of followership. The
problem with the Republican leaders is that they're cowards.... The real
locus of the problem is the Republican activist base and the Republican
donor base. They went apocalyptic over the past four years. And that
was exploited by a lot of people in the conservative world. I won't soon
forget the lupine smile that played over the head of a major
conservative institution when he told me that our donors think the
apocalypse has arrived.
Republicans have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by a
conservative entertainment complex.... Because the followers, the donors
and the activists are so mistaken about the nature of the problems the
country faces the nature--I mean, it's just a simple question. I went to
Tea Party rallies and I would ask this question: "have taxes gone up or
down in the past four years?" They could not answer that question
correctly. Now it's true that taxes will go up if the President is
re-elected. That's why we're Republicans. But you have to know that
taxes have not gone up in the past. And "do we spend a trillion dollars
on welfare?" Is that true or false? It is false. But it is almost
universally believed.
That means that the leaders have no space to operate.

And to think that the guy who coined the phrase "axis of evil" is now the moral conscience of the Republican Party.
How low they have truly fallen.

IT makes sense that Mitt Romney and his advisers are still gobsmacked by
the fact that they’re not commandeering the West Wing.

(Though, as “The Daily Show” correspondent John Oliver jested, the White
House might have been one of the smaller houses Romney ever lived in.)

Team Romney has every reason to be shellshocked. Its candidate, after
all, resoundingly won the election of the country he was wooing.

Mitt Romney is the president of white male America.

Maybe the group can retreat to a man cave in a Whiter House, with
mahogany paneling, brown leather Chesterfields, a moose head over the
fireplace, an elevator for the presidential limo, and one of those men’s
club signs on the phone that reads: “Telephone Tips: ‘Just Left,’ 25
cents; ‘On His Way,’ 50 cents; ‘Not here,’ $1; ‘Who?’ $5.”

In its delusional death spiral, the white male patriarchy was so hard
core, so redolent of country clubs and Cadillacs, it made little effort
not to alienate women. The election had the largest gender gap in the
history of the Gallup poll, with Obama winning the vote of single women
by 36 percentage points.

As W.’s former aide Karen Hughes put it in Politico on Friday, “If
another Republican man says anything about rape other than it is a
horrific, violent crime, I want to personally cut out his tongue.”

Some Republicans conceded they were “a ‘Mad Men’ party in a ‘Modern
Family’ world” (although “Mad Men” seems too louche for a candidate who
doesn’t drink or smoke and who apparently dated only one woman). They
also acknowledged that Romney’s strategists ran a 20th-century campaign
against David Plouffe’s 21st-century one.

But the truth is, Romney was an unpalatable candidate. And shocking as
it may seem, his strategists weren’t blowing smoke when they said they
were going to win; they were just clueless.

Until now, Republicans and Fox News have excelled at conjuring alternate
realities. But this time, they made the mistake of believing their fake
world actually existed. As Fox’s Megyn Kelly said to Karl Rove on
election night, when he argued against calling Ohio for Obama: “Is this
just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?”

Romney and Tea Party loonies dismissed half the country as chattel and
moochers who did not belong in their “traditional” America. But the more
they insulted the president with birther cracks, the more they tried to
force chastity belts on women, and the more they made Hispanics, blacks
and gays feel like the help, the more these groups burned to prove
that, knitted together, they could give the dead-enders of white male
domination the boot.

The election about the economy also sounded the death knell for the Republican culture wars.

Romney was still running in an illusory country where husbands told
wives how to vote, and the wives who worked had better get home in time
to cook dinner. But in the real country, many wives were urging husbands
not to vote for a Brylcreemed boss out of a ’50s boardroom whose party
was helping to revive a 50-year-old debate over contraception.

Just like the Bushes before him, Romney tried to portray himself as more
American than his Democratic opponent. But America’s gallimaufry wasn’t
knuckling under to the gentry this time.

If 2008 was about exalting the One, 2012 was about the disenchanted
Democratic base deciding: “We are the Ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Last time, Obama lifted up the base with his message of hope and change;
this time the base lifted up Obama, with the hope he will change. He
has not led the Obama army to leverage power, so now the army is leading
Obama.

When the first African-American president was elected, his supporters
expected dramatic changes. But Obama feared that he was such a huge
change for the country to digest, it was better if other things remained
status quo. Michelle played Laura Petrie, and the president was
dawdling on promises. Having Joe Biden blurt out his support for gay
marriage forced Obama’s hand.

The president’s record-high rate of deporting illegal immigrants
infuriated Latinos. Now, on issues from loosening immigration laws to
taxing the rich to gay rights to climate change to legalizing pot, the
country has leapt ahead, pulling the sometimes listless and ruminating
president by the hand, urging him to hurry up.

More women voted than men. Five women were newly elected to the Senate,
and the number of women in the House will increase by at least three.
New Hampshire will be the first state to send an all-female delegation
to Congress. Live Pink or Dye.

Meanwhile, as Bill Maher said, “all the Republican men who talked about lady parts during the campaign, they all lost.”

The voters anointed a lesbian senator, and three new gay congressmen
will make a total of five in January. Plus, three states voted to
legalize same-sex marriage. Chad Griffin, the president of the Human
Rights Campaign, told The Washington Post’s Ned Martel that gays, whose
donations helped offset the Republican “super PACs,” wanted to see an
openly gay cabinet secretary and an openly gay ambassador to a G-20
nation.

Bill O’Reilly said Obama’s voters wanted “stuff.” He was right. They want Barry to stop bogarting the change.

Jennifer Rubin has endured no shortage of criticism for using her Washington Post blog to blatantly and counterfactually shill
for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. And in the aftermath of
Romney's electoral defeat, she's tacitly acknowledging as much. Today
Rubin offers her post-mortem
of the Romney campaign, casting it as ineffectual and unequal to the
task of removing an incumbent from the White House -- an assessment that
flatly contradicts her aggressively pro-Romney pre-election writing.
Here's Rubin's November 7 take on the Romney-Ryan campaign:

Until October it was the Perils of Pauline campaign. It moved in fits
and starts on foreign policy. The message was rarely consistent from
day to day. Gobs of ads were aired to no apparent effect. The convention
speech was a huge missed opportunity. Romney made a lunge now and then
in the direction of immigration reform and an alternative health-care
plan without giving those topics the attention they deserved. The
communications team was the worst of any presidential campaign I have
ever seen -- slow and plodding, never able to capitalize on openings. It
was hostile, indifferent and unhelpful to media, conservative and
mainstream alike.
Matters did improve once Ed Gillespie moved forward to take charge of
the message. A message at least became discernible. The ads certainly
were simpler, more direct and more attuned to making a case for Romney's
agenda. But if not for a stunning series of performances in the debates
and unexpected eloquence on the stump in the last month, Romney almost
surely would have done worse than he did. A presidential race needs more
than a good month to be successful.

Let's take what she's written here, in the cold reality of a Romney
loss, and compare it to what she wrote when the Romney campaign was
still in full swing.Rubin now: "The convention speech was a huge missed opportunity."Rubin then: "Mitt Romney accepted the nomination of
his party for president with a speech that showed he can rise to an
occasion, and let us see a side of him that was compelling and
heartbreaking." [Right Turn, 8/30]Rubin now: "Romney made a lunge now and then in the
direction of immigration reform and an alternative health-care plan
without giving those topics the attention they deserved."Rubin then: "The media are doing their best to
disguise the unpleasant fact that Mitt Romney has been more forthcoming
on immigration than the president has in more than three years in
office." [Right Turn, 6/24]
"This isn't that hard: Romney will repeal Obamacare. He has always
favored protection for people with preexisting conditions who move from
one employer-provided plan to another or from an individual-purchased to
an employer-provided plan." [Right Turn, 9/10]Rubin now: "The communications team was the worst of
any presidential campaign I have ever seen -- slow and plodding, never
able to capitalize on openings."Rubin then: "The Romney team, to a greater degree than most campaigns, has been criticized and lampooned. Too timid. Too unfocused. Too slow. Too inept.
But this week demonstrated that the campaign officials are more skilled
than they have been depicted, and their errors and stumbles have in
large part been obliterated in the lingering glow of the convention.
There is some personal vindication for them as well." [Right Turn, 8/31]Rubin now: "But if not for a stunning series of
performances in the debates and unexpected eloquence on the stump in the
last month, Romney almost surely would have done worse than he did. A
presidential race needs more than a good month to be successful."Rubin then: "We've made the case that not only the
first presidential debate but the debates as a whole recast the race and
vaulted Mitt Romney into a position to win the race. Pollster Charlie
Cook is the latest election guru to agree." [Right Turn, 10/31]

About Me

I'm just another old woman who has had wide ranging interests for a long time,
These include fishing, shooting, reading, cooking, and all manner of (mostly) left wing politics.
Born and bred in New York - Queens, to be precise - I now live in Texas, another state that folks seem to attack (like N.Y.) without ever having been here.
I'm also a fan of most sports -- esp. baseball, esp. the New York Yankees.
Originally a New York Giants (baseball) fan, I was crushed when they moved. It took many years wandering in the wilderness before I returned to baseball. I's all Wade Boggs fault. When I watched that artist, my love for baseball resurfaced. Since he was then a Yankee -- it had to be the Yankees.
The Mets pretended they had spiritual ties to the old Brooklyn Dodgers - no Giant fan could go there.
I tried - couldn't do it.